|
Home / Personal Development / Stress Management
Everyday Stress Or Stress As A Mental Illness?
By:Kevin Sinclair
Stress is a part of life. All of us have to deal with different kinds of stress on a daily basis. Problems occur, however, when stress is chronic and a person is unable to obtain relief. When this happens, stress can affect us mentally and emotionally.
If stress is too overwhelming for too long, a person can feel that they are going under. They may even wonder if they are going crazy. To help you evaluate where you stand with stress, this article will go over the types and symptoms of stress.
Normal symptoms of stress include anger, feelings of helplessness, temporary depression, churning stomach, tense muscles and emotions. Abnormal stress symptoms include suicidal thoughts, ongoing depression, anxiety, mood swings, chronic anger, and phobias amongst others. These psychological symptoms may be written off as mental health issues but they are likely to still be the result of stress and fear.
Different factors can make it hard for people to cope with the same amount of stress. If someone is already coping with illness, then it may be harder to cope with additional stresses. If a personal has insufficient coping skills, limited education and lack of access to support, stress can become overwhelming.
Depending on what else is going on in a person's body and mind, different types of stress management strategies may be appropriate. A proper diagnosis will determine whether some of the stress induced symptoms have a medical or psychological basis.
There are many stress management strategies that are universally helpful, however some methods of coping with stress may actually be harmful for certain psychological conditions. For example, with Multiple Personality Disorder (now termed Disassociate Identities) visualization techniques may cause a problem.
We are all different so it only makes sense that different stress management strategies will have various impacts depending on the person. Ordinary people who are dealing with everyday stresses commonly cope with their stress by avoiding stressors that can be avoided, planning ahead of time (like leaving home fifteen minutes early to avoid traffic jams), preparing (like studying ahead of time for an exam, not just the night before) and making new decisions.
For example, if your job is highly stressful, think carefully about your situation and if necessary change jobs. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do to avoid or reduce stress in the situation itself, you have to leave.
However, common stress management techniques will not work for everyone, particularly if a person is suffering from mental illness. For example, there is a story about how a young psychotherapist conducted a class teaching stress management techniques that was open to everyone. Unfortunately, there was no discussion with individuals or taking of personal information beforehand.
Everything seemed to be going well and he could see some people visibly relaxing as they did their breathing exercises and began to visualize according to the instructions. The sharp tension that had been in the room gradually lessened and the young psychotherapist was feeling happy with the results.
Suddenly, a young woman who had been sitting quietly against the back wall, jumped up and ran out of the room in a panic. The psychotherapist later discovered that she suffered from Dissociate Identities and the process of visualizing other people in different environments was actually a threat to her own identity.
While this is certainly unusual, it can happen so it is important that stress management practices are targeted to individual needs and circumstances. We have a large part to play in this ourselves, but so too do professionals who seek to aid us in coping with the various stressors in our lives.
Yet, the young psychotherapist did not do a bad job. He just didn't do a thorough one. In this scenario, the young woman was sitting next to an older man who just oozed tension. He had a stressful job and had had a particularly bad day. In his case, the stress reducing activities worked wonders. He released the built up tension in his body, his mind relaxed and he felt calm and peaceful again.
The difference between the two examples is that one person was a normal healthy person dealing with an overload of stress whereas the other person was dealing with a psychological illness. For stress management to be effective, we have to know what we are dealing with. We also have to be willing to take the time to discover what stress reduction strategies work best for us.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: stress, stress management, dealing with stress, coping with stress, self help, self care
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of My-Personal-Growth.com, a site that provides information and articles for self improvement and personal growth and development.
|
|
| Top Stress Management Articles |
- 1). The Causes Of Stress By : blueboy
This article looks into the causes of stress and gives free tips to help you control and reduce your worries.
I have, as I am sure many people do, stressed for most of my life for many different reasons.
Even though I still worry about many things, I have now learned how to handle many of these situations and will write about how I go about doing this, in this article.
|
- 2). How to Keep Stress Out of the Car By : Ken Snowie
We’ve all experienced it: it’s morning rush hour, you have five minutes to get to work, and you are stuck in traffic because of a major accident on the highway. The stress of being late for work makes your blood boil or it’s the evening rush hour, and you’re late to pick your child up from day care. You narrowly avoid an accident because of a careless driver.
|
- 3). Stop Stress Now: Ten Proven Techniques By : Art Turner
There's no such thing as a stress-free life. We face challenges every day, and our bodies are designed to react automatically, equipping us to achieve more than we thought possible. But we were also designed to deal with stressful events quickly and then recuperate during a period of rest before facing the next threat. Many of the things that cause us stress today are not easily handled by fighting or fleeing.
|
|
|
- 5). Coping With Stress in The Workplace By : Ken Snowie
Stress at most jobs is unavoidable. It could be caused by a boss who is very demanding, or a coworker who doesn’t pull his or her weight. Or maybe you have a typically stressful position, such as medicine or law. While some stress on the job can drive you to succeed and be healthy, too much can be very bad. It can cause many health problems and be detrimental.
|
|
|
- 7). Combat Stress - 7 Practical Methods By : Rene Graeber
A stress-free lifestyle could very well do wonders in eliminating depression.
Here are 7 practical methods to combat stress:
1. Express Amusement And Be Happy.
Laugh hard and loud. If you don’t have a sense of humor, find someone else who has. Laughter releases endorphins (happy chemicals) from the body, and it helps boost your immune system.
2.
|
|
|
- 9). Keeping a Safe Distance from Management Stress By : Hector Milla
You finally got your well-deserved promotion. After working years and years on proving your worth, having been recognized for your efforts and getting that sizeable increase is making all the hard work well worth it.
But then again you didn't count on all the pressure the new job comes with. You suddenly notice that you're always tired, irritable and hardly gets any sleep, in other words you're all stressed out.
|
|
|
| New Stress Management Articles |
- 1). Overcoming Panic Attacks By : Mark Webb
Panic attacks are usually progressive in nature if they are not treated properly. Many people who suffer from panic attacks go for months and years before getting the correct diagnosis.
|
|
|
- 3). Journaling To Reduce Stress By : Jason Johns
When you get stressed, journaling, i.e. writing things down, is an excellent method of releasing the stress and making sure you can deal with it better in the future.
|
|
|
|
|
- 6). How Email Is One Of The Greatest Causes Of Stress By : Terence Young
When email first hit the scene many experts were touting the end of snail mail. After all they said email can be sent for free, it was instant and you were able to potentially receive a reply to your communication faster than it would take you to drop of your snail mail at your local post office. Decades on email has certainly far from replaced the use of snail mail.
|
- 7). Quiz - Are You An Expert At Fighting Stress? By : CD Mohatta
Stress is becoming pervasive in modern life. We are now finding that stress causes many diseases that can affect our life style. Stress damages our mental peace and physical fitness. Quiz yourself and find out if you are an expert at fighting stress.
Stress will always be there - To hope that stress can be avoided in modern life is difficult. All of us face stress in our life.
|
- 8). Quiz Your Anger By : CD Mohatta
Anger is one of the most common emotions. Most of us get angry . some of us get angry at the smallest provocation, while for some others it takes more. Some of us keep our anger with us and seethe with that while others may release it immediately.
Anger over what was done wrong with us is the most damaging emotion. It tires us very fast. Any betrayal can give rise to anger that can go out of control.
|
- 9). Stress Management, The New Health Trend. By : Trenton Martkes
What is it about stress and stress management that everybody has their panties up in a bunch about now-a-days? I mean do we really think that our society today is more stressed out than back in the days when people were dying right and left, eaten by large animals, starving, being shot with arrows, etc.? I mean you've got to be kidding me right? Well yes and no.
|
- 10). How To Cope With And Reduce Stress By : blueboy
I have always struggled to live a stress-free life. I worry about almost every aspect of life and living this way has caused me a lot of problems including various bouts of ill health from time to time. I needed to find a way of coping with and reducing the amount of stress in my life and in this article I write about how I have managed to achieve this.
|
|
|
